Tuesday, January 15, 2013




by Quin Hillyer
January 14, 2013

Jennifer Rubin does a nice take-down here of the increasingly despicable Colin Powell, who smeared his former party on Meet the Press by accusing Republicans of a “dark vein of intolerance.” Thus says the first black Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staff, the first black Secretary of State, the sometime mentor of the first black woman to serve as Secretary of State… all under Republican sponsorship. 

Thus says the back-stabbing lout who deliberately let the innocent Scooter Libby twist in the wind, and then get convicted, when one word from Powell would have ended the investigation. 

Thus says the man who was afforded credit he didn’t deserve for conduct of a Gulf War (1991) he more or less opposed, the man who denounced his own testimony to the United Nations while blaming others for its substance, the man who claimed to be a Republican moderate but who endorsed the most radical leftist Democrat ever to serve in the presidency over a Republican moderate (John McCain) who had repeatedly befriended him and praised him throughout his career.

Marco Rubio was right to push back against this man of little character. Two Hispanic senators who are Republicans, none a Democrat? Check. 

Two Latino governors who are Republicans? Check. 

A Republican as the only black senator? Yes. 

Two Indian (Asian) governors? Republican. 

The only senator in recent memory with real American Indian blood (at least partially) in his veins? Republican. 

Legions of party activists first inspired into politics by the inclusive, open, sunny Jack Kemp? Yes. 

The party’s most recent vice presidential nominee? An actual former top aide to Kemp.

Powell has become nothing other than a nasty apparatchik currying favor with those in power. 

Maybe that’s all he ever was.

28 comments:

  1. Powell has ALWAYS. been a self serving jerk. Personally, I never understood what anybody ever saw in him as a " Republican". Yes, he was black... but is THAT any reason to give him a "pass"?

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  2. Well, I always liked -- and trusted -- him, until he "came out" for Obama.

    That tore it!

    But then, Powell is no different from myriad other so-called Republicans with whom I've become thoroughly disillusioned.

    There's one on C-Span right now -- a representative from Virginia who calls himself Scott Rigell. Just another lap dog for the forces who want to tax us to Perdition.

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  3. I have no idea what his problem is. I do know that he was never a solid republican anyway, and there is nothing wrong with that.

    I imagine his politics are closer to President Obama's than the GOP's, so I don't blame him for speaking his mind. I just wish the press would stop calling him a Republican, because he clearly is not.

    You provide a damning list and it provides the facts in black and white, but I think I know where Powell is coming from.

    The GOP has a tone problem. They have not yet learned that style counts more that substance in this brave new world, and they had better wake up and smell the coffee, or they will become extinct.

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  4. Welcome, Mr. Fouts! How good to see another articulate voice of reason appear on the scene.

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  5. The GOP's "tone problem" is the pandering self effacious liberal media. The public can no longer stand being told that the government wasn't established to take care of all their problems, in perpetuity. The reality principle cannot counteract their pleasire princle.

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  6. Yes, Thersites, another way of saying "No one can beat Santa Claus."

    No one believes in Santa Claus, of course, except children. Sadly that means -- for whatever reason -- we have become a nation of perennial infants.

    Back in the 1920's Noel Coward, who had a lot more going for him in the brains and heart departments than many ever realized, wrote a wonderfully amusing song that began with the provocative question: "What's Going to happen to the children, when there aren't any more grown-ups?"

    Someday, when I feel enough ambition to take down the words from Coward's scratchy old recorded rendition, which I first heard as a young teenager. It's prophetic meaning impressed me even then -- one of those rare things that once heard you can never forget.

    It will make an elegant post, when I finally get around to doing it. The trouble is -- as it is with all the really good stuff -- few will bother to listen, and fewer still will bother to learn.

    "Sic transit gloria mundi."

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  7. I should have added: "over and over and over and over and over and over again."

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  8. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  9. I remember when this lying piece of crap was testifying in front of the U.N. on Hussein's "Mobile Labs of Death". Remember that little vile of whatever he showed everyone?

    My, didn't the fickle fringe right love his ass then.

    The guy is just another cheap pimp, nothing to see here folks, move along.

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  10. Dreadful, Thersites! Just DREADFUL!

    That superannuated lead singer could certainly use some dental work.

    PHEW!

    Two - four - six- eight!
    Let us all degenerate!

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  11. Dental work? He could use a sense of dynamics, phrasing and intonation.

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  12. I continue to have a great deal of respect for Colin Powell.

    As to the rEpublican party? It has more than a tone problem. It is certainly not conservative or anti socialist. It is however rapidly becoming irrelevant.

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  13. Life today is hectic.
    Our world is running away.
    Only the wise can recognize
    The process of decay.
    All our dialectic
    Is quite unable to say
    Whether we’re on the beam or not,
    Whether we’ll rise supreme or not,
    Whether this new regime or not
    Is leading us astray.

    We all have Frigidaires, radios,
    Television and movie shows
    To shield us from the ultimate abyss.
    We have our daily bread neatly cut,
    Every modern convenience but
    The question that confronts us all is this:

    What’s going to happen to the children
    When there aren’t any more grown-ups?
    Having been injected with some rather peculiar glands
    Darling Mum’s gone platinum
    And dances to all the rumba bands.
    The songs that she sings at twilight
    Would certainly be the highlight
    For some of those claques that Elsa Maxwell
    Takes around in yachts.
    Rockabye, rockabye, rockabye my darlings,
    Mother requires a few more shots.
    Does it amuse the tiny mites
    To see their parents high as kites?
    What’s, what’s, what’s going to happen to the tots?

    Life today’s neurotic, a ceaseless battle we wage;
    Millions are spent to circumvent
    The march of middle age.
    The fact that we grab each new narcotic
    Can only prove in the end

    Whether our hormones gel or not
    Whether our cells rebel or not,
    Whether we’re blown to hell or not,
    We’ll all be round the bend
    From taking Benzedrine, Dexamyl,
    Every possible sleeping pill
    To knock us out or knock us into shape.
    We all have shots for this, shots for that,
    Shots for making us thin or fat,
    But there’s one problem that we can’t escape.

    What’s going to happen to the children
    When there aren’t any more grown-ups?
    Thanks to plastic surgery and uncle’s abrupt demise,
    Dear Aunt Rose has changed her nose
    But doesn’t appear to realize
    The pleasures that once were heaven
    Look silly at sixty-seven,
    And youthful allure you can’t procure
    In terms of perms and pots.
    So lullaby, lullaby, lullaby my darlings,
    Try not to scratch those large red spots,
    Think of the shock when mummie’s face
    Is lifted from its proper place,
    What’s, what’s, what’s going to happen to the tots?

    What’s going to happen to the children
    When there aren’t any more grown-ups?
    It’s bizarre when grandmamma, without getting out of breath
    Starts to jive at eighty-five and frightens the little ones to death.
    The police had to send a squad car
    When daddy got fried on vodka
    And tied a tweed coat round mummie’s throat
    In several sailor’s knots.
    Hushabye, hushabye, hushabye my darlings,
    Try not to fret and wet your cots.
    One day you’ll clench your tiny fists
    And murder your psychiatrists.
    What’s, what’s, what’s going to happen to the tots?

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  14. ...it goes better with dynamics, phrasing and intonation.

    *rolls eyes*

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  15. That's pretty much exactly how I speak.

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  16. Like Noel Coward? Now that's a shame...

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  17. Not really. But hey, maybe it would really sound that way to you Americans -- it's closer to Noel Coward than it is to Dick van Dyke's famous cockney, for example.

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  18. I am now forever in your debt, Jez. Thank you very much. Saves me a deal of work.

    I found Sir Noel's recording on YouTube quite easily, but not the printed text. Perhaps I didn't look in the proper places for it?

    As everyone who knows anything already knows, Sir Noel began life speaking in cockney dialect. His rise from the gutter to the theater to the finest drawing rooms and thence to knighthood is admirable and inspiring.

    He was brilliant, creative, witty beyond compare, and had great range as an actor. As a singer per se he was mediocre at best, but it didn't matter in thew least with the type of material for which he was justifiably famous. I only wish his personal life had been happier and more rewarding.

    Claude Rains performed a similar feat of spectacular self improvement. So did Sidney Poitier, a native of Jamaica, who taught himself to speak a more standard form of English -- a feat that enabled him to have the successful movie career he enjoyed.

    Genuine improvement over one's natural condition should ever be called "affectation," and vice versa.

    At any rate Coward's witty little patter song turned out to be as profound and prophetic as it was amusing, didn't it?

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  19. The gutter? Who knew that the middle classes were so near the curb?

    btw - A good propagandist certainly appreciates "style" over "substance". Speak near-enough "like" an authority, and you're bound to be mistaken for one.

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  20. "Look at her -- a prisoner of the gutters --
    Condemned by every syllable she utters.
    By rights she should be taken out and hung
    For the cold-blooded murder of the English tongue."


    ~ Alan Jay Lerner pick-a-backing GBS's Henry Higgins in the opening scene of "My Fair Lady," a successful musical adaptation of Shaw's play "Pygmalion."

    Those who spoke Cockney English have traditionally been regarded as "low class" in Britain. Heaven only knows what the English think these days, of course. Apparently, they too have abandoned all former standards in favor of mushy brand socialistic ecumenism.

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  21. Noel Coward's father was a piano salesman. His mother was the daughter of a surveyor.

    Noel Coward may have spoken with a "lower class" accent, but if he did, it was strickly a "personal" decision.

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  22. "mushy brand socialistic ecumenism."

    Not really, it's just that we've come to realise that what we admire about Noel Coward is not the silly voice so much as his wit, creativity and flair; so in future we'd like to enjoy comparable wits wherever they emerge and, if necessary, we'll try to see beyond a cockney or, god forbid, northern accent to do so.

    Well done to Poitier (actually Barbadian) and his ilk for overcoming the barrier of around their accents; but boo to the society of that time for making such a big deal of it to start with. -- I'm not saying that actors don't have special vocal demands which require training to master, but I gather he was treated pretty shoddily.

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